let me start by saying UNF'ING believable how hard this became. Just a bit of background, I'm no stranger to working on cars, built my supra from the ground up, went 9.60s in a 6spd car, I know turbos, motors, and electronics all pretty well. I'm more than capable and comfortable completely disassembling and reassembling virtually anything on a car. For those initiated I have personally done a turbo swap on a B5 S4, which is quite possibly the most stupidly designed process EVER...

Having never disassembled this car before I assumed 4-6 hours, I had all the air tools, multiples of every bit/flexihead/thinwall etc that I would need - should be an on and off affair.

I started by soaking down all the studs/nuts I would need to be sealing with - 36 hours before starting - resprayed again about 18 hours before starting.

using rock's bumper removal, flawless, was going great - Easy I thought
took the rear heat shields off, no problem.

Next I moved on to removing the heat shield from the factory exhaust, since I was unable to soak those down prior to bumper removal, I managed to strip 2.. yes 2 allen wrenches on one bolt, wasn't going as awesome now. After hammering in an oversized allen socket I was able to break loose the sucky one, and the rest actually came out pretty easy - I was about 6 hours in at this point, end of day 1, before I shut down the garage for the night I Went ahead and soaked the bolts and studs AGAIN ...

Day 2.

I start the day with my normal work day, let the garage warm up and get nice and hot so I can enjoy working on the car while it's 98 degrees in my garage. Around 6pm, I start by loosening the first nut on the pass side turbo - the stud begins to back out, meh, no big deal - comes out just fine, just need a new stud/nut - took about 8 minutes. From there it just became a **** show.

2nd nut seems to already be finger loose, awesome I think should be no problem, turns out it's finger loose and rounded off, well good thing it's finger loose right? - nope - I have no idea HOW this happened but the nuts seems to have backed out the stud almost entirely minus 3 or 4 threads, the nut is finger loose between the stud blank and the first few threads. For the life of me I still can't figure out how that happened, but the nut itself is stripped, it will not grab any threads but is not loose enough to take off.. FML - I move on and ignore that one. next two nuts back out the studs, takes a lot of work - approximately 3 hours for the remaining two bolts on the pass side. - Meh I think to myself, I can cut that one stud if I need to, but at least the pass side is "off"

Day 3 I begin on the drivers side

First nut won't budge, won't tighten, won't loosen, won't move - I finally get a long 13mm box head, then use a long 22mm as an extension for some leverage... sheers the stud off, not a big deal I think, at least it's a clean break instead of a rounded nut. nut two actually moves and seems to come nearly all the way off, the last 4-5 threads are gulled up and the nut gets cross threaded, I try to man handle it back in place, get it to go back down the stud so I can chase the threads with a tap or something, no go. I 've effectively locked the nut in place and won't move either direction. I Attempt the same trick, wont move and won't break - can't even believe the stud wouldn't back out - this particular stud seems to be made out of unubtanium. The two top studs and bolts are just as bad, similar results, the one closest to the fender on the top snaps, the one on the top inside has the same result as the nut that didn't come off, wouldn't break, wouldn't back out the stud, nothing...

So here I am, can't remove the exhaust because it's locked in place by two nuts that won't move, i already have 2 broken studs, and one that is just stuck on the drivers side. I resign myself to just cutting them off. It's now midnight, I Call it a day.

Day 4:

I start the day by taking the day off, because f you texas weather - I grab some coffee, head to home depot to make sure I have a FEW fresh cutting wheels for my angle grinder, as well as my dremmel if necessary, I grab a taco on the way back and get ready for battle.

I start off by just cutting the 3 problem studs, thinking to myself well now I've made progress! - I remove the straps from the exhaust, pull the exhaust off and think "yes, I'm half way done, only 4 days in!"

by 10 am, I have the exhaust removed and am ready to start tackling the problem studs. I get my drill, and trusty drill bit set. I punch a hole as near the center of the first stud as I can, then begin drilling - low speed, wd40, I've done a few of these in my life, i know what I'm do...... SNAP first drill bit down - MOTHER F.... was part of my nice set too! - new drill bit, start again, slower and less pr.... SNAP... GDMFGDGDGMDGMDFMMF I'm less than 5 minutes in and have snapped 2 drill bits, and this is just me trying to set a pilot hole! - I step up the bit size to something with a bit more strength and after approximately 15-20 minutes of drilling SLOWLY and lubing I get through the first stud, it takes me the next 3 hours gradually stepping up the bit size to get through it and remove the stud fragments. SHOCKINGLY no damage to the threads, I run it though with a tap to clean the threads and am easily able to thread an M8 bolt into it and back it out by hand... AWESOME... only 3 more to go.

I start on stud 2, and realize my drill bits are so dull now that they are completely ineffective - back to home depot, I pony up for some cobalt "hard metal" drill bits in 5 different sizes, up to 1/4" - I also stop by my buddies machine shop and steal his MAC drill bit set. Go to fastenal for some grade 10 metric hardware

To shorten the story a bit, I end up spending the next 11 hours drilling out the remaining studs. Iconel steel studs are damn near impossible to drill out, I break 12 more drill bits, including several from the MAC set, and once I have to drill out the broken drill bit.

Hind site what it is, It might have been faster to take the turbos off and take them down to his machine shop, and either use a drill press, or possibly weld a nut and lots of heat/cool to extract studs...

I end day 4 frustrated but at least it's all apart and I can put it back together in the morning right?

Day 5 - I Begin to hang the exhaust - I Choose to use grade 10 M8 bolts on the one side that had no damage to the threads in the turbo housing, and on the other side I use grade 10 M6 flanged bolts/nuts - Believe it or not, the exhaust goes on relatively easily, and in less than an hour I have fired the car up checking for leaks prior to buttoning it up. I Start cleaning up my area - it's about noon on day 5 and getting too hot to continue working in my garage, I call it for the day and will finish up at night, night rolls around, I put the bumper back on, connect everything and all done... - Except I forget to connect the light connector behind the bumper cover and now I am throwing "check light" errors... And my exhuaust tips aren't even, but right now I don't give a damn... lol

TLDR: broke a bunch of studs (like everyone else) - took way too damn long to chase/cut/drill them, finally worked through it. Don't understimate the nightmare stories you've read - cuz they are ALL True. 5 days... I say record time!....

 

Wow dude, what a nightmare. Been there before with a job taking waay longer than it should, but not with this car thankfully, and I've done a fair amount of wrenching on it.

Did the car come from out of state or spend time up in the salt belt? I'm in TX too and mine wasn't too bad, I only had to replace several nuts and also a few studs as well..

Yeah I have a detached uncooled garage which is why I much prefer winter projects on my cars..

What exhaust did you go with?

 

Yea they can be a bi*** to do for sure. I found that a dremel with a small disk works well to just cut the nuts. Then take a small chisel and open them up. Then it's just a matter of cleaning up all the stud threads. Unfortunately I didn't figure that out until I spent 4 or 5 hours on the first side.

 

Sounds like a nightmare indeed.

 

Florida car according to the carfax, but who the heck knows on a 10 year old car with 52k miles.

I have fully finished 24x30 workship with 14 foot ceilings, I had initially planned on air conditioning it but my roll up door doesn't seal well enough to keep it cool - during the mid day even with the big a$$ fan it just doesn't stay cool enough to be enjoyable.

I did the techart exhaust - sounds great, but not loud.

 

I was just considering this project and envisioned it unfolding exactly as you described. I may have to farm this project out.

 

I have removed my OEM for a Speedtech but did use PB blaster. Zero issues and it's a Florida car. Since then I have removed it and gone back to my OEM. Bolts do need to be tightened at 17 foot pounds and no more.

 

OP - I'm sorry for all your trouble with this project. But, I'm glad to hear this kind of crap happens to others also, not just me!

 

It's really not funny, but I had to laugh in reading this. That's exactly what I think would happen if I tried to replace my exhaust myself!

 

Sorry to hear about all the problems during your installation. Hopefully it will all be worth the trouble!

 

Wow that definitely sounds like a nightmare. I had my mechanic install my exhaust and he did it in 6 hours, but he looked awfully upset at me afterward.

 

Yeah just for future reference only real good way to get those nut and studs off that are all rusted and rotted away is the torch. Heat up to red blazing hot them turbo socket or vice grip to break them loose. I have done a few that were driven in the winter here in Chicago that were pretty much nothing left of the nuts. Actually not nearly as bad as say a 5.4 3vin a ford truck exhaust manifold. Pretty much working blind not trying to set the truck on fire.

 

Me too, watched some you-tube videos and read the how-to's but I'm not attempting after reading this.

 

Mine took 2 days and lots of chisel time. Thankfully I didn't break any studs because I just chipped away with the chisel until those BS copper nuts broke

 

Yep. Same here. I'll pay someone to do this, thanks.